Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

So, with Christmas Eve only three sleeps away (EVERYTHING is counted by sleeps in my house), I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on all the craziness of this year, as some of my extended family and my very close friends read this blog to keep up on our family news.

At the beginning of 2009, I was working part time at the store, one day a week at the daycare, and babysitting Tues/Thurs (miss that little one sooooooo much). I had planned to keep up this kind of blend of stay at home/working mom until the girls began public school in Fall of 2010.

Then in February I discovered a part time teacher education program with evening and weekend classes that would accept me with my credentials and experience. The program would take 2 1/2 years to complete and I would have a Master of Science in Teaching. Wow! Little did I know how much this one click on a link on the internet would drastically change the course of our future.

After attending an information session, and speaking with former teachers (of mine) and other contacts who work with the local school board, I decided I would apply for the fall of 2009, then defer my acceptance by one year, which would slate me to start Fall of 2010. I was accepted, and in interim, I am working on the "catch up" courses they have asked me to take (a computer course, children's literature, and history). I will officially begin attending grad school at SUNY Potsdam in the MST Ottawa program Sept 2010. For those of you who don't already understand, this is my life's dream, and my life's work come to fruition. All I have ever wanted to do was teach, and now I will be doing just that.

So there's me in a nutshell for 2009. Schoolwork, work, and kids.

Winter 2009, the girls participated in pre dance, and while they enjoyed it, Mackenzie did not want to continue. Laura did a second session, and then decided she preferred gymnastics like her sister. Both girls were taking swimming lessons at a local gym.

We bid goodbye to our baby B in April, as the looming summer vacation season and future tuition costs meant that I needed to work out of the house more. We do miss her, but it was the best decision for us in terms of our future needs. Around this time, the daycare I worked at announced they would be expanding, by building a completely new daycare, and Pladec would become Pladec and Pladec East. This meant some major changes were expected for my part time position.

In June, we enjoyed a three day mini vacation in Niagara Falls. We saw the sights, had a day at Marineland, spent some time with the butterflies, and just hung out. This trip went amazingly well, the only thing I would have changed would be to remember the laptop power cord so the girls could have watched a movie at night to fall asleep. I will definitely be planning one or two of these little mini trips for the coming warm season.

The rest of the summer, when I wasn't working, we had trips to the cottage, took in the buskers festival, and spent a lot of time at Grammy and Grandad's house with our bikes (nowhere to store our bikes inside at our house, so its safer to keep them in Sydenham).


In September, when things slowed down, we were able to head for the Toronto Zoo to see the Sharks at Stingray Bay exhibit in which we got to pet stingrays. Unfortunately, the sharks would not come out from under the waterfall to allow us to pet them. We had a blast, and again, it was a day that went so well, that we will be doing the zoo many times this coming year.

Laura is on the right in this picture, Mackenzie is on the left. They are two months shy of five years old in this picture.







Having our picture taken on the Komodo Dragon, Mackenzie in front, Laura in the back.







The girls also started their final year of Montessori school in September. By October, both were attempting to read three letter word, and Mackenzie excelled and is now able to sound out simple four and five letter words. She is zooming through our home readers. Laura is learning using a combined phonetic and whole word approach, and is doing very well with her reading too. She can recognize words such as the, and, she, dog, and is trying to sound some three letter words out as well. She is excellent at paired reading and story telling. I am so proud of them both! They are taking Red Cross swim preschool lessons and are doing very well, and are taking Kindergym at a local club, and again, are doing a great job. They have already told me they would like to try soccer in the summer.

In November, the twins turned 5. We had family and a couple of friends over for a party at our house. It was an enjoyable day. Also in November, we had to declare our interest in positions at the new daycare, or interest in changing our current position in the old daycare. Since I knew that my position would not exist beyond the next few months, I proposed to the board that I be the cook, with certain scheduling conditions. They offered me the position, I accepted it and will be working as a full time cook/ECE relief staff at the beginning of the new year. What a huge change that will be.

That brings us up to Christmas, we still have baking to do, and presents to deliver.

This year, I will pick the girls up from Christmas with Daddy's family on Christmas Eve, take them to my parents home where we are staying the night and having Christmas morning. The girls will then be picked up for Christmas with Daddy (and others) mid afternoon, leaving us adults to nap, have dinner, and enjoy some quiet time. I think it is going to be one of the best Christmases in recent years.

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy New Year! All the best for 2010~!

And the Darwin Award goes to....

I hate to say it, but this one goes to Miss Bean.

Today, when I picked up the girls, Miss Bean stuck her tongue out at me and it looked like a small piece was missing. Her mouth was a little bloody. The sitter explains that she was sticking her mouth on metal outside.

So, this is pretty normal kid stuff. However....

We are talking at dinner about what happened. She told me what metal, and then tells me three times. THREE TIMES! Miss Bean, what do you mean you did it three times? Didn't you think that after your mouth got stuck the first time, you should stop?
Nope, didn't hurt. was kinda fun.

But the third time I bleeded. It hurt lots, and hurts lots now.

Yep, my girl, the kid who stuck her mouth on dirty gross freezing metal three times, even after her mouth stuck the first two.

What exactly can you say to that?

Things are pretty calm right now

I must say, the last few months have been nuts, as evidenced by the blog posts. They have been about everything.

Right now though, things are seeming rather calm. I realize this is the calm before the storm, as I have 2 1/2 weeks left until I work full time, as well as starting a new course that will take a lot of work.

But for now, I am enjoying having my Christmas shopping done, hanging with my girls, and not worrying about my budget (I am very fortunate to have received some financial good news which will allow me to be even better prepared for school next September).

Sorry, but it doesn't make for very interesting reading at the moment.

Hopefully I will have pics taken of the girls new dolls to share - those new additions I promised pictures of almost a month ago- and photos of our Christmas tree, and of course, the girls themselves.

Christmas Preparations

So, a couple of days ago, I explained how Christmas would work this year.

The girls are having Christmas with their paternal grandparents on Christmas Eve, I will pick them up from there, and we will go to my parents house, where we will do all of our Christmas Eve traditional stuff, and we will spend the night. Santa is coming to Grammy's house, and the girls and I will have Christmas morning with my parents.

The catch here - we are bringing my 80 lbs cat hating dog with us and my parents have a cat. The girls are aware that Diesel has this issue, and today, while Diesel was nudging us as read our book that teaches us about Santa and his magic, it talked about how Santa's magic works on dogs.

Mackenzie looked Diesel in the eye sternly, holding his face in her hands, and said " Okay, so you won't bark at Santa, now all you have to do is not eat the cat. Don't eat Grammy's cat." She proceeded to seek reassurance that Diesel would sleep in the bedroom with them with the door closed so that she wouldn't get up to find out he was bad.

Coming Home Day

Today is a day that only a mother who has lived the life of the NICU can understand.

Today is coming home day, and it is as important to me as the day the girls were born.

Five years ago today, I packed them in their carseats, snapped them on the stroller, gathered all of our stuff, and signed the papers that said the girls could come home. Then Casey and I looked at each other and we ran with our babies for the nearest exit, scared that someone would notice something, or something would happen that would prevent us from finally leaving.

You see, when you spend most of your hours with your newborns in the NICU, you get to know the other parents, their babies, and their stories. We got to know one family, and were on first name basis with them, even sharing a pizza between feedings one night. Their going home day was 5 days before ours. They had spent two nights in the "care by parent" suite across the hall, and we said our goodbyes that morning. Then, as I was feeding both girls, in comes Baby J, mom (tearing up) and dad (looking devastated himself). Apparently when the nurse went to give them their paperwork, she noticed baby J was a little discoloured around the mouth. Turns out that day was not their going home day. They remained for a further three weeks - we saw each other in WalMart one very late night finishing our shopping.

So needless to say, we were worried that something would stop us from leaving too.

Nothing happened, we took the tunnel to the garage, packed the babes in the car, took pictures and headed on our way.

Today was the beginning of the rest of our lives. And I am more grateful for it than any other day there is.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

So we put the tree up like, two weeks ago almost. BUT as of yesterday, if you look under my Christmas tree you will find a few wrapped presents. They are all for the girls of course, as I have decided to try very hard to have presents wrapped well ahead of time. Of course, I will hide the "santa" stuff and it will be wrapped with paper they never see - part of the magic I try to add.

I must say, I am rather proud of myself this year. I have but a few minor things to get between now and Christmas, and I will likely have those taken care of by the end of next week.

How have you been doing?

Again, on the upside of this change

I found out today that I will have benefits as soon as I start my full time position. Usually there is a 3 month waiting period, but the board of directors at my centre have opted to waive the waiting period, crediting me the year I have already worked for the centre. How awesome is that! Just in time for the meds I stockpiled while on benefits through the ex to run out.

Can I get a WOOT WOOT

Life is full of changes Pt 2

So, my blog post yesterday took a very negative tone about the job change I am facing in 5 weeks.

I want to clarify the positive reasons for taking the job, because it obviously isn't all bad and it obviously isn't all about giving up what I feel is a near perfect existence.

#1 I have a regular schedule and a regular pay cheque
#2 The extra income will be exactly that, EXTRA income. It will be put into my savings to pay for school starting in September, and the EXTRA will mean I should have enough saved specifically for school to pay for at least 1 1/2 semesters - possibly 2 if the loonie holds. This is a much better financial outlook than what I had predicted.
#3 Not only will I be able to pay cash for school longer, but I won't have to use money in my savings to pay for the fuel costs and possible hotel costs associated with it. Those will be able to be out of pocket instead.
#4 I will be done early enough in the day that I will regularly have 1-2 hours to do schoolwork, errands, workout, whatever I need/want to do until I have to pick up the kids.
#5 No other daycare has ever wanted to be this flexible for me, and I doubt many others would even consider this level of flexibility
#6 The people at Pladec are great, the families are awesome, and I DID NOT RELISH THE IDEA THAT I MIGHT HAVE TO LEAVE if none of the available jobs fit after the expansion
#7 The East end of Kingston is getting a much needed, off base, daycare that has extended hours and great programs and I love that I am involved in it somehow.

Life is full of changes AKA The BIG announcement

Yes, Chris, I stole your last blog posts title. Cause it works for me.

So, up until now, I have been living in the best of both worlds. My very flexible 3 part time jobs have allowed me to work and socialize with adults while still staying home with the girls - they go to school three days a week, so I've been home on their days off, and sometimes on their school days.

This life has been a struggle financially, and scheduling can be a nightmare if one gets sick and it is the ONE day that week I HAVE to work. But it has been utopian in the sense that I have been with my kids, having pj days, going to the zoo in the middle of the week, deciding at 10 am to go bike riding in Sydenham, exploring Lemoine's Point on the only sunny day all week. I am so thankful that I had the good sense to construct this fairytale existence for myself and the girls. But all good things must come to an end eventually.

So, life being full of changes, in the spring the daycare I work at announced it was expanding - building an entire new centre- for everyone this was great news, everyone except me that is.

I knew the moment the announcement was made that my part time existence at the centre would cease in one way or another as my position existed because of specific circumstances at the centre itself. I have spent the last few months agonizing over how to handle the situation when it occurred. One thing was obvious - I would not be able to take a regualr full time teaching position with the centre for two reasons: #1 the kids, their schedule, and the fact that it doesn't mesh with the daycare's expectations of a full time staff, #2 SCHOOL, like the big deal school, not the online stuff I've been doing to catch up. One night a week I would need to leave for Ottawa by 2pm at the latest - no way would that fly.

My choices; hope for a permanent part time that worked with the schedule we keep here, move on to another centre (or back to an agency I worked for), or.....wait.... I see a light..... what if I cooked?

The cook position at the old daycare centre could be done in about 30-32 hours per week. If I could just convince everyone that I could still be on schedule while starting later on school days, it might work. Just might.

Hmmmm.......

Long story short, I applied for, was offered, and have accepted the full time cook position at my daycare. This will mean HUGE changes around here, as I still plan to keep my store job - every other weekend I work 12 hours- and my other part time job. I will also (hopefully they don't cancel it this time) be starting Canadian History in January. Then grad school/teacher's school in September.

How I am going to do it, I don't fully know yet, but I have lots of ideas. I already have been making use of the girls' one hour gymnastics lesson by studying in the parent room (and I'm not the only single mom doing that !). I will also have a 45 minute lunch break, and likely time after work before having to pick up the girlies, in which I will get groceries, study, SLEEP even. I think I can make this work, with the added support of my family, and close friends.

Stay tuned, I am sure to be posting more on this topic, as my first day, January 4 nears.

On floods and such

So, I'm watching the news yesterday, and they are covering the BC floods. I was so frustrated by the story that I tried to blog about it, and was too flustered to articulate myself properly.

Now I have calmed and had time to reflect and I have something to say.

#1. If you know an area floods regularly (and I don't mean every year, but has been a known flood plain within the last two decades) DON'T build your house there. Even the most undeveloped cultures in the world know this. Why is it, we, the most educated people on the planet cannot put 2 and 2 together and not build where the water flows? ( I am reminded here of Survivor 2 or 3 when one tribe built their camp in the path of a river overflow. First rainfall, swoosh, everything washed into the croc infested river)

#2. If you can't insure your house for the reason that it is built on a known flood plain, you should be shit out of luck. BUT did you know that in the case of these BC floods the government is giving the un insured flood plain dwellers 80% of the value of their losses? WTF. If the insurance tells you not to build there cause it'll flood, and you build there anyway, you shouldn't get the government paying you for your stupidity.

#3 If you have been told repeatedly that this house is on a known flood plain, and you can't insure it because it is on a floodplain, you don't deserve people being sympathetic about your loss. It's kinda like leaving the keys in your convertible on a busy downtown street, DUH, yo did it to yourself.

Frankly, after writing all of this, I am still disgusted with our society that feels sympathy for people who knowingly put themselves in the way of disaster, and then pays them for losing everything, despite the fact that multiple sources told them whatever they were doing was a bad idea.

The Bomb

So, I had planned to make some job changes over the summer, because the girls would be in daycare full time, then going to big kid school in September, meaning that the full time daycare would be caring for them before and after school.

Well, due to the expansion of our daycare, there are lots of changes happening, and unfortunately they are happening much sooner than I had expected.

Basically, my cushy, comfortable part time position will not exist for much longer, and a full time position that will allow for school time, and the girls' schedule until June has come up. It's a position I have done before, in a different way, but it is a position that I like.

So, about 6 months ahead of schedule, right about when I hope to be starting my history course, I will likely be starting to work full time as a cook for the daycare, and remain part time at the store on the weekends.

So, here goes the end of an era, having the best of both worlds. The advantages of being at home with my girls, and the income of having 3 part time jobs.

Now its time to get down to business.

Makes no sense whatsoever, but seems to have worked

So, this morning I am walking down the three stairs to our entryway. My daughter is sitting to one side putting on her boots. I slip, doing the semi splits, knocking my daughter into the wall next to her, and the pain in my ankle is excruciating.

My daughter has a little knock on her noggin, but is fine, just really scared.

Oddly enough, the pain in my ankle began to subside within 2 minutes. This was very disconcerting. Normally, when I fall like this, it hurts for days. When I was 11 I injured my right ankle badly, and have re injured it frequently since. The most recent injury was Dec 27 last year, when I was sure I must have broken it finally, but severely sprained it, earning me 10 days on crutches. Since then, despite the best efforts of my chiropractor, it hasn't been right and I have had a lot of pain when working out or being on my feet for a long time.

Today, it seems, whatever happened last December was reversed. After the pain subsided, I stood up and oddly, felt like I was finally standing normally. While the soft tissues are sore, and there is bruising, the joints feel like they are where they should be, for the first time in 11 months.

Who'd a thunk falling down the stairs would fix the injury I received the last time I fell down the stairs?

Sun Ceremony

So, the montessori tradition celebrates birthdays of children in the class in a very special way.

Its called the sun ceremony.

All the children gather in a circle, the sun is placed at the centre. The child (or in my case children) to be celebrated brings a picture of when they were born, their first birthday, second, and so on up to the last birthday they had. The child walks around the sun carrying the first picture, while the group sings a special song about the sun. This is done with each picture to represent each year of the child's life, each time the child has been around the sun. The final go round is without a picture, to represent the beginning of the next year of life.

The girls really love this ceremony, and tomorrow is their third, and last sun ceremony as they have been at Montessori three years now. How the time flies.

Breathing a huge sigh of relief.

So, in my life it seems that major events tend to lump themselves together, and while I take lots of time to prepare and schedule to make life as simple as possible, it can be exhausting.

This past weekend 3 major events took place. Keep in mind, normally my girls are with their dad on the weekends, but due to two of these major events, I had them home with me. My mom came early Saturday morning, with plans to take the girls out for breakfast and to get new pretty shoes for dressing up nice this holiday season. I headed out to write my three hour final exam for Children's Lit. While I was well prepared, I was not well rested, having fretted all night long about this final. It's the first exam I've taken since I graduated Trent. That was in 2002. I took almost all of my three hours and I know I passed. I left the dry exam room in agony despite the lovely executive chairs they have for us to sit in.

Then it was off to Amherstview to pick up the girls nut free Hannah Montana birthday cake.

I got home to find my mom folding laundry, my girls incredibly happy with their pretty shoes, and had the opportunity to quickly go get everything I needed for major event #3 before my mom went to meet my dad.

I took the time after my exam and before major event #2 to start cleaning and do some preparation for major event #3.

Major event #2 was my staff party at my boss' house. This is technically a three hour paid training in which we play with all the new machines and are educated about each product. Jean's an awesome boss who figures we all know what we're doing, and we all talk about the different products to each other when we find things out about them, so we went to his house, ate great food, and laughed and talked and had a great time. The girls came with me, and Jean's youngest daughter adopted them, and I barely saw them the whole time. She even sat with them to eat dinner, and helped them get more when they wanted more. This event was a nice relaxing time at the end of one very stressful day. We came home, the twins passed out immediately, and I wrapped presents for event #3.

Sunday morning was spent preparing for event #3, the twins 5th birhtday party. We had invited a family with two severe nut allergies. The game plan Sunday morning, lock all the nut containing stuff in a cupboard, and lysol everything within a three year olds reach. Then prepare the party food. The phone kept ringing, the girls were fighting and bugging and generally making things more difficult. But I had everything done before guests arrived, with a little help from mom who got the girls dressed and made up the food trays.

The girls really enjoyed their birthday party. Unfortunately our friends with the nut allergies didn't make it. All I can say is it feels great to be past the final exam in the most horrible course I have ever taken (that I couldn't drop), and the girls' birthday party cause that always takes a lot of preparation.

Tomorrow, pics of the two new additions to our family, Allison and Velia ages 20 months and 17 months respectively. The girls haven't left them alone since they opened them. They are getting them a year later than when I got my first one, but I couldn't find any that were the traditional ones last year in stores. As it was I had to buy these in July to make sure I had them.

My plan for a dreary day.

Today started out really gorgeous, but the clouds are rolling in, and the air has a bit of a damp feeling to it. It looks just plain gloomy.

My plan to combat the gloom: Bake.

Pumpkin spice muffins - triple batch of course - maybe make a loaf and 24 muffins this time.
Chocolate Chip cookies - cause I am craving some.
If I can find any more grated zucchini, i am going to make chocolate zucchini bread too. But I think, alas, all the grated zucchini from my friends parents garden is gone.

I think I will also make some different cookie doughs to roll into small logs and freeze - peanut butter chocolate chip, white chocolate macadamia, and of course, the chocolate chip will be a double batch so I can freeze the better portion of it for later.

Questions, questions, questions.

So, if you've ever been separated you'll get what I'm talking about here

Family and close friends always ask the same questions whenever I see them.

"How are you doing with everything" (Are you falling apart, cause if so, I'd like some warning so I can take cover)

"Are you seeing anyone"
I once answered yes to this. I will not say yes to this again unless I am seriously seeing someone, and am ready to introduce him to everyone, cause wow, the damage answering yes did. Everyone wanted to know everything about the guy, we'd been on a total of two dates, one wasn't even a date until we talked about it afterward. For now my answer is NO. Who knows if it'll ever be yes.

"Are you going to have more kids/Do you want more kids?"
What's the right answer here. Let's face it, I don't know what I'm doing. I doubt I'll have more simply because I don't think I'll get that deeply involved with someone ever again, but let's face it, I can't predict the future. So far, I answer no, and get that's a shame, you always wanted lots. Yes, I wanted 3-4 kids, but is it realistic to do that now considering the time it would take to become that seriously involved with someone, and be in a long term stable relationship with them? Not really. I'd like to retire when its time, and I'd like the chance to travel with my girls to a couple of places before they're too old to enjoy it. There's a certain freedom that comes from having 5 year olds.

"How are things with HIM?"
Well, don't really want to get into it, we are civil, that's the end of it. Again, what is the right answer here?

Starbuck's

So, I have a little habit. Its a little expensive by most people's standards, but its not harmful to my health, nor is it expensive as far as I am concerned compared to others' habits.

When I need a brain boost, I get a Starbucks Soy mocha, no whip. Usually its the biggest one I can get. No whip means no added calories that I don't really need, and the soy milk means I won't be wheezing a couple of hours later. Not to mention soy milk has huge health benefits and adds protein, which means I can drink my snack or meal instead of eating, which tends to get crumbs in the keyboard.

Like today, I was working on my final paper for the Children's lit course and needed something to boost my productivity. I got a Starbucks, came straight back home, and huge levels of inspiration ensued. What I thought would be two to three hours more work became a little more than one hour's worth.

When I was in Britain, every time we stopped for a rest break, I grabbed a Mocha, boy did I get lots of thinking done on those car rides.

I recently procured a free espresso machine. I had hoped to curb paying over $5 for my boost, but unfortunately the last time I attempted to steam some milk, it blew up. Perhaps I'll end up getting one next year after all the Christmas hoopla and winter expenses are over.

My New favourite recipe

Ok, so this was a complete experiment. It started with my desire to make some chili to freeze and eat throughout the next two months.

No Frills didn't have any small packs of ground beef, absolutely no ground pork, so I ended up with ground turkey.

When I came home from shopping, I started the onion,celery, garlic trinity. I like to put celery in chili and pasta sauces because its another vegetable that I can't stand to eat raw, and I love to count how many veggies we have in this or that. It ups my count, and I don't even notice its there.
I added the package of ground turkey, seasoned with a little salt and pepper. A can of whole tomotoes (I refuse to buy crushed as I have discovered skins in them many times - EW!) went in once the meat was browned, then a can of black beans (I just prefer them over Kidney beans), and mushrooms. Then, when I went to grab my big jar of chili powder, uh oh. Empty.

I then had three options - turn off the glorious looking mixture and get chili powder in the morning (girlies were sleeping), turn the mixture into pasta sauce (NO I WANT CHILI!), or be inventive.

A search of my spice cupboard produced still no chili powder, but a package of fajita seasoning. Hmmmmmm, that could be interesting.

I add the fajita mix and let it bubble. A quick survey of both freezers reveals I have no corn in hand, as it was becoming apparent this was a mexican style chili, and corn would definitely add to the flavours.

Next day for lunch I served TURKEY AND BLACK BEAN FAJITA CHILI with corn chips. Mine was garnished with sour cream and some chopped jalapenos from the pickle aisle. YUM OH

Even my four year olds ate it, and have asked when we are having the funny chili with chips again. I have to write this one down for our favourite family creations binder.

Children's Lit

I HATE ENGLISH LIT COURSES!

One of my prerequisites for SUNY is Children's Lit. EEEWWW!

#1 I have a science degree, the last time I did an essay in MLA was, oh, say, High school.
#2 I have a science degree, I have never taken a course that is so abitrarily agree with me or parish
#3 I have A SCIENCE DEGREE I deal with facts, information, and breaking down facts so people without prior knowledge can understand them, not analyze a children's picture book and come up with a theme for the book that no child could ever possibly identify

Science furthers our knowledge, reading older tomes teaches us about the way we thought as a society at the time, again furthering our knowledge, picking apart books for young children to the point of making our discussion sound like the ones the English geeks used to have about Utpopia and Ulysses does nothing to make me a better person, smarter, or a better teacher. It just annoys me.

Okay, I've got it out of my system. Now its time to go pick apart Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

The TRUE cost of this trip

So, I did some figuring in my head. I figure that if I had purchased a working updated copy of streets and trips, or the Ontario Map book, I would have saved a ton of money.

All in all, my extra driving cost about half a tank of fuel, probably a little more. That's about $25-$30 depending on gas prices.

Because I was lost leaving, I ended up stopping for food when I was REALLY hungry. (Jacks, my pumkin seeds were in the trunk). So instead of grabbing a little bit of deli meat, a little bit of deli cheese and a couple of fresh rolls to curb my hunger till I got home, I bought McDs breakfast.

Then, because I was tired, and a little fried from being lost in the middle of nowhere, I lock my keys in my car, costing me $20 and delaying me further.

Finally, I had planned to be home in tons of time to cook myself a decent supper, but due to delays, was again starving part of the way home. Trying to push myself because I was so late resulted in me feeling a little yuck, and realizing I needed to eat something now, I took the next exit. I needed something I could eat while driving, and my choices at this particular exit were McDs or Harveys. Well, I hate Harveys. So it was McDs again. CRAP.

So, instead of spending about $30 plus tax so I could find my way without internet, I ended up spending about and extra $80 to $100 thanks to my navigational mistakes and lack of a map.